Tuesday, 10 February 2015

Tell All Tuesday ~ Featured Artist: Anja Voigt

Hello beautiful creative,

Welcome to today's Tell All Tuesday Artist Interview

I hope you find this super inspiring & have an awesomely artistic Tuesday to boot =)

Tell us a little bit about yourself & what kind of artist you are.I am a mixed media artist and art journaler, living in Germany, Berlin. I learned to be a pattern- designer as a profession. My passion is painting and drawing, but I also like to write, so art journaling was an easy step for me. I struggled a long time to follow the path of an artist, because I made a lot of compromises on my way. I thought I need to help people, heal people, which is awesome, too, I guess. So I studied art therapy, but didn't finish that. I also learned how to educate children, but after while I felt that making art or being an artist is the essence of what I really want to do, although all of these things had to do with being creative and such. I never wanted to admit to myself to be that selfish, lol, because I had very altered expectations of myself. I always felt this unrest. I find myself still in a process of unveiling who I really am, inspite of all the expectations from others, my parents etc. etc.and being ok with what is showing of my real personality. I love to learn new things, because I can get easily bored. I do not like to make an identical reproduction of my work, for example. It always needs to be a bit random.

What is the biggest challenge you personally face as an artist and how do you overcome it?I think the biggest challenge would be to create something totally abstract. A picture without any visual motive, like a figure or something. I sometimes find that motives in my art are just like alibis to put color into a certain corner of the Picture. I didn't overcome that, yet. Another challenge is my pickyness. I sometimes see little flaws everywhere on my art and keep on working and working. I overcome it with a gut feeling that I should stop now and leave the rest to the observer and mostly it makes me stop.

What do you find easiest / hardest in your art?It is easy for me to make my stuff look good and to be quick, which I learned as a pattern designer, but that does not always support my artful expression. You know... art does not have to do with beauty all the time. To me the beauty in art is the true and honest authentic expression, that has nothing to do with the used materials, the quality of materials or the skill of the artist. That is why we find a painting of a child so beautiful, because of its simple, honest and unpersuasive expression.Art can be also destructive or just an impression that you cannot push away, that is stuck in your memory and works from there.

Do you think you have achieved a uniquely recognisable style as an artist, or do you find it a struggle to find your own style?I find myself at a point, where I have arrived at a certain style I think, but it is still like a fragile little plant that needs to be supported. I found that hard, but the solution to achieve your own style is just to keep on creating, every day a little. Don't back down! You Need to Keep it up! One stroke a day!

Tell us where can we find out more about you & your art?

Right now most of my stuff gets posted on facebook under my name Anja Voigt. All the other stuff, like society 6 and such is in the making. I have a youtube channel called reginaangel. I just started to paint bigger canvases with what I created in my art journals.

Thanks for sharing Anja I really enjoyed your art & insight. 'One stroke a day!' is ringing soooooooooooooooooo true with me right now! That is a path I've been on for a few months and shared a little on here in 'My Daily Journaling Practice' blogpost. I feel it's soooooooo important to do, even when we aren't in the mood and no masterpiece is coming to just do that one brush stroke! Thanks so much for your interview Anja, wishing you all the best with your creative endeavors.